Further to the cases of protection of the martyrs from being hurt by the
wild animals -which were described above- our collections describe many
cases where the animals served the Saints in different ways.

Saint Koprios as a baby was fed by a goat which "grazed with the other
goats and when it was time to breastfeed' the baby, it descended from the
mountain and having breastfed' the child it returned to her usual grazing.
The same Saint was ascending the mountain with a laden donkey which was then
wounded by a bear, he then got hold of the bear, loaded it with the wood and
told it "you'll perform the service of the donkey until it recovers....".

In the case of Saint Makarios the Roman, the lions became the cause to
feel his sinfulness: every day two lions would come to his cell and keep him
company. One night he was tempted by a thought of the flesh and considered
it a great sin, because the lions would not come close to him for ten days.

Well known is also the case of the lion and Saint Gerasimus the Jordanite,
where the beast "was forced to carry water, while in many depictions it
drags the donkey from the bridle (reins) and brings it to the Saint as a
hunt quarry only to be falsely accused that it had killed it.

The care of the beasts however does not stop in serving a Saint, but
continues to the taking care of the relics, as shown in the case of Saints
Philomonas and Apollonius: Their relics were placed in bags and were cast
into the sea where a large dolphin "took" the bags on its back and brought
them to the coast of Alexandria.

In the life of Saint Martinus, bishop of Lougdoynoy, there is this happy
story that shows the love of the animals towards the Saints: in the area of
Nitria, an ascetic lived on wild herbs but did not know how to select the
good from the poisonous, with the result that he would suffer with
convulsions. This way he stopped eating for seven days and was on the verge
of dying. Then an ibex (type of deer). Approached him and dropped him a bag
of vegetables. The beast with its mouth selected the good from the poisonous
herbs. This way the ascetic taking this as an example of what to eat, he was
saved from death.

The Saints heal or send away the animals.

As Isaac the Syrian said: "a merciful heart is the fuel of all the
creation.....and of the fowl and of the animals......for this to the benefit
of the dumb animals..... blesses tearfully every hour. For this reason,
flooded by the love for God and man, the saints have great reserves of love,
that they pray also for the animals and in fact heal them, either because
they suffer and feel compassion for them, or because they are useful to
people while getting rid of the risks that hurt people.

In Saint Mark the ascetic a hyena visited him and brought her blind cub
and acted as if she begged the Saint to cure it. The Saint having prayed
spat in the eyes of the cub which was then healed. Few days later the hyena
brought him a pelt of a large ram. The ascetic took it after making sure
that the hyena understood she should not harm the sheep of the poor.

Many times the healing of the suffering animal was nothing more than from
a pathological organic disease, but an animal could also be tormented by
demons as we see in the Synarxis of Saint Martin of Tourins: "he met a cow
that was tormented by a demon and was goring people with her horns. When the
Saint approached, he lifted his hand and ordered the animal to stop. He sees
the demon sitting on the back of the animal. "Go unclean from the animal and
cease tormenting the innocent animal. When it was freed, the cow fell at the
feet of the saint. He then ordered it to rejoin the herd, stronger than the
sheep.

One of the common scourge of the plants and trees are the locust. Our
Church then reads prayers of Saint Tryphon that has done a specific miracle
with the locust. Similar case with harmful animals is also the following:
Monk Joannikios once went to the island of Thasos. The island was infested
with poisonous snakes that caused death. The people of Thasos, begged the
ascetic to save them from the scourge. He prayed and immediately the snakes
started coming out of their nests and head for the sea where they drowned.

The animals show gratitude and contrition to the Saints.

The animals which received benefits from the saint - within the framework
of communication that develops - express their gratitude with different ways
to their benefactor, such that the biographer of Saint Martinus wrote:
".....for this we sigh that the beasts feel the kindness and the people do
not revere it".

The lion that benefitted from Saint Gerasimus volunteered to serve him by
"hauling water". From the life of Saint Martinus, again, we have the
following: "an ascetic accepted a visit from a female wolf which he treated
with whatever he had. Once while absent the wolf entered his cell and ate a
piece of bread. The following days the animal did not come.

This saddened the ascetic who then made it the object of his prayers. The
seventh day the wolf came and sat at a distance in a way that one could
detect displeasure,' with eyes looking down from deep shame, obviously
asking to be forgiven...... The ascetic caressed her giving her joy.....
Thus, as the biographer notes, the wolf renders service (companionship),
feeling the wrongfulness of stealing, recalling and having a sense of
forgiveness that was granted her...."

Something similar is also the previous example of the ascetic Mark with
the hyena that gave him the sheepskin as a gift for the care she received
and the healing of her cub.

The mourning of the animal for the death of a saint.

The lion that served Saint Gerasimus the Jordanian in its customary visit
to worship the elder, was informed by the attending monk of his demise and
when it was led there (to the grave) "it roared greatly and then expired".
Another lion helped the elder Zosimus to bury the relics of holy Mary of
Egypt: "Immediately when the lion was told the required size of trench, it
did so (dug it) and then buried the body".

The animals talk about God

Between the other wonderful signs that we find in the collections,
noteworthy are those where the animals appear to be talking with God or the
Saint.

Holy Artemon of Laodecia was followed by two deer and six donkeys. When
he was captured, he told the animals to report it to bishop Sisinius - who
was surprised when a female deer told him of the arrest of Artemon. While
the Saint was being tortured by being skewered over a fire, the deer would
lick his burns and then said to the torturer: "know impious one that two big
birds will grab you and will drop you in the boiler" as it happened. Also at
the martyrdom of Saint Eutyhius the animals would speak.

Similar is the case of the wild mules which dragged the corpse of Saint
martyr Zoticus, the orphan feeder, to the emperor Constantius. "Even when
they were flogged violently by the torturers, the human voice invokes
everybody to their triumph over the king's atrocities and lack of reason,
calling him blind and insensitive".

This amazing phenomenon of talking animals is not foreign in the Old
Testament where we have the conversation of Eve with the snake and the
donkey of Valaam. Even as these two cases in the Old Testament, subsequently
those in the New Testament are given different explanations. Through all
these cases, the explanations given confirm the Jewish teaching that all the
animals had the grace of speech in paradise until the expulsion of the first
created there from.

Others, denying the historical validity of the Bible, consider such
narrations as myths. More powerful is the explanation of Holy Chrysostom in
his 16th speech on Genesis where he explains the conversation between Eve
and the snake, through which it is apparently applicable to all the other
similar stories in both the Old and New Testaments. "But perhaps someone may
wonder and wish to know if the beast took part in the conversation. May this
not be so, for always following the scripture it is necessary to consider
that while the saying were of the devil...... the beast was used as a
specific tool.......".

According to this explanation by Saint Chrysostom it is not this animal
but God Himself who gives us the message or the devil, as was with Eve and
the snake.

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